Still Writing

I'm having computer problems, so it's not as easy to log in and write. But I thought I'd check in and prove I'm still alive. I guess I should at least say something thoughtful, so, um...um...centaurs - are there female centaurs? You never see pictures of them. I know, that's because centaurs are usually depicted as not wearing clothes, so that gives the artist a challenge.

Is this sexist? The male centaurs are essentially naked and we just accept that. Okay, they also have the advantage that we can't really see their private parts very well. Wait, are their genitals between their back or front legs? That's a separate issue.

But mermaids/mermen give us a precedent that half-animals may keep their animal parts unclothed. Of course, mermaids usually have a tasteful bikini top, so centauresses could do something like that.

A Two-Four And A Six-Pack Of Canadians

Yesterday Canada's new Liberal government unveiled its cabinet, and there was more excitement than ever before. By that I mean, there was some excitement.  It was because Prime Minister Trudeau promised to have the first gender-balanced cabinet.  And he managed to do it, with the thirty members split right down the middle. So there was a lot of talk about how the cabinet "looked like Canada."

That had me wondering about just how representative it was. People have complained about a phenomena where we misjudge how representative groups are.  For example, if everyone expects the group to be dominated by men, but the genders are actually 50-50, people will think of it as over-representing women, because there are more women than expected.

With that in mind, I looked up some of the statistics for this cabinet and for Canada as a whole.  At least I think these are accurate statistics; it seems someone has cancelled the long-form census.

Group	Cabinet	Canada
People from Greater Toronto	23.3%	16.3%
Quebeckers	20.0%	23.61%
Ontarians	36.7%	38.4%
Albertans	6.7%	10.9%
Nunavummiut**	3.3%	0.09%
Sikhs	10.0%	1.4%
Aboriginals	6.7%	4.3%
Men	50%	49.0%
Women	50%	51.0%
People with physical disabilities*	6.7%	13.7%
African-Canadians	0%	2.9%
Visible minorities***	16.7%	16.2%
LGBT*	3.3%	5%
Astronauts	3.3%	0.000026%
* as far as I know
** people from Nunavut
*** Did you know that First Nations aren't considered "Visible Minorities"?

So it's not perfect, but it is surprisingly close.  Except for Sikhs, who are statistically way over-represented; not sure how that happened. Commence "Sikhs are taking over" paranoia in 3, 2, 1...

Sticking Around

Here's something I've always wondered:

When they were making the first video game consoles in the 1970's, they needed a device that could be a generic control for any type of game.  So they borrowed the concept of the "joystick" from the world of aviation, where it had been used for close to seventy years.

Once the video game industry got its hands on the concept, it took about 25 years to mutate into this:

Meanwhile, aviation still uses this:

detail from "Airbus A380 cockpit" by Naddsy - http://www.flickr.com/photos/83823904@N00/64156219/. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons.

That picture is from the Airbus A380, the super-jumbo flagship from one of the world's biggest aerospace companies, and yet it's being controlled by something that looks like it plugged in to my old Commodore 64. 

So one industry must know something the other doesn't. We'll have to see if over time gaming's innovations leak back to aviation, and pilots of the future will be hunched over grasping a controller with both hands, hoping they don't drop it during a landing.

The Force Sleeps In

One of the advantages of being a geek is that you don’t feel your age as harshly. For most people, there is a time when you realize that you are no longer cool. It could be the time you overhear some teenagers talking and realize that you don’t understand anything they’re saying - and worse, you don’t care. Or it could be when you hear a hit song on the radio and don’t recognize it, or you haven't heard of whoever is playing it.

But if you’re a geek, that never happens. Or more precisely, it has always happened. You aren’t embarrassed when you don’t understand teenagers because you didn’t really get them even when you were one, and you didn’t much care what they said then, either. In fact, an ageing geek may even feel younger: By the time you reach adulthood, you’ve spent so much time dealing with mainstream culture that you’re starting to understand it, if only by repetition. Those teenagers may actually seem less alien now, even if you are observing them like an anthropologist.

Lately though, I have been feeling old, even in my geekiness. The problem is, I'm just not excited over the new Star Wars movie. Yes, it looks promising. Yes, I would like to see it. But the fact is, I can wait.

I don't know if it's cynicism after the last trilogy, or if I don't yet trust JJ Abrams and Disney to run the franchise. Maybe it's because I've now spent most of my life with vague promises of more Star Wars eventually.

What's weird is that most of my fellow geeks do seem excited, and very much so. And that enthusiasm is coming from a wide age range. They were stretching the Internet to its limits to see the trailer for the new movie as soon as it came out. But I didn't bother until a week later. Others spent October looking for two ideally-sized pumpkins to make a jack-o-lantern that looks like that little rolling droid; I can't even remember the name of that little rolling droid.

So I feel a bit left out. I don't feel like I fit in with the outcasts any more.  I guess I could consider myself a non-geek.  But I still can't fit in with them.  Or I could just look at it the other way and become a geek-among-geeks, a nerd-squared.  Yes, you can keep your Star Wars; while you're camped out for tickets, I'll be in the sci-fi section of my local independent bookstore.

Who Ought To Be In Pictures

What's the deal with these posters featuring Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Humphrey Bogart?  A local diner has several, as they seem to see them as the way to get their 50's vibe on. (That previous sentence involved a collision of the slang from at least three decades, I apologise for it.) I thought maybe it was one artist with a weird fixation, but I've found at least two artists making them.

You can get them playing poker, singing karaoke, even working on an anachronistic stock car. Which is at least less morbid than Dean with the car he died in.  And perhaps most famously, you get get them replacing the original subjects of Edward Hopper's classic Nighthawks.

But I have to wonder, why them?  If you want to evoke the fifties, there are plenty of other choices. Even if you specifically wanted to show bitter-sweet heroes embodying America's lost innocence, you could have used, say, Buddy Holly.  The page I linked to at the start of this post also included a number of suggestions.  I'm guessing that the reason is that descendants of celebrities may have a problem with how they are depicted, and perhaps these four have less legal problems.

I also wonder what people other decades might turn into poster stars.  I need to know for when I go into business with my retro 80's fast food joint.  Michael Jackson is an obvious choice.  Madonna and Prince have probably stayed around too long to represent the era. Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon would work as an 80's symbol, but is probably not well-known enough as an individual. Who else? How about:

• Michael J. Fox
• Boy George
• Corey Haim
• Molly Ringwald
• Cindy Lauper
• Mr. T
• Brooke Shields
• Pee Wee Herman
• Max Headroom

Those are my suggestions. Painters, get to it; I'll be by in a few years to pick up my painting of four of the above playing Trivial Pursuit.

Tattoo Who

I have no tattoos, and no plans to get any.  Yet, tattoos have become so common in our culture that I've asked myself what would I get.  I mean, what could there possibly be in the universe that is important enough to me that I would want to make a permanent commitment to it. (Why yes, I am single.)

I'm thinking about this because I saw something about a Walmart employee who got the Walmart logo tattooed on his arm.  You might laugh at him for that, but at least he's made a commitment to something that's important to him, which is more thought than usually goes into tattoos.  I'm not sure Walmart has as much commitment to him, but that could be part of his plan: it would be terrible publicity to lay-off the guy who got a company tattoo, so his job is safe.

Rarely have I ever felt that kind of unreserved belonging in a group.  And as I'm sure this blog has shown, I frequently end up disappointed in people and things.  I've never loved, say, a TV show enough to want to put it on my body.  Sports teams are out; I may allow them to play with my emotions, but I remind myself that they have no dedication to me.  Essentially, I treat them like cats.  I don't even feel a close enough affinity to a particular idea, as these people do with math. I had thought that the only thing I feel a complete love for is Lego, and now I see that they screwed over Ai Weiwei.

(Having said that, here are some Lego tattoos I just found.)

So that's it.  Unless I decide to just get a big question mark, I don't think I'll ever get a tattoo.  Or I'll just tell people that I got a tattoo of the blank space that represents my ultimate disappointment with modern society.

That's The News, And I Am Outta Here

“But I believe in this - and it’s been tested by research,
that he who fucks nuns will later join the church”

-The Clash, "Death or Glory"

Still the greatest line in the history of rock. In the song it was part of a critique of rebellious musicians, but I always associate that quote with either Joan Rivers or Dennis Miller, two great comedians who turned into the sort of people that their younger selves would have made fun of. When Rivers died, some younger people were genuinely surprised at what positive feelings she elicited from so many people. I guess that's understandable: to many adults today, she was known only for catty red carpet coverage and work on the shopping channel. I always wondered what 1970’s Rivers would have had to say about a person like that.

Miller turned off a lot of fans with his drift to the right in the last decade. Defenders have pointed out that he was never really lefty, and his SNL colleague Al Franken has said he doesn't find Miller’s current work surprising.

But to me the disappointing part wasn't his ideology, but his partisanship. Though he may have leaned right in the past - or more accurately, libertarian - the joy from his routines came mainly from his ridiculing the stupidity of society in general and politics especially. Now he's not really a conservative, but a loyal Republican. Or to put it another way, is hard to believe the guy who said of Reagan and nuclear weapons,

"There's no more frightening image in the world, than the finger having access to the button, having a string tied around it."

...later said,

“I’d like to thank George (W) Bush for allowing me to respect the American presidency again.”

But now we can add another to the list of those joining the church later in life, and that is Miller's former show, Saturday Night Live. They’ve announced that Donald Trump will host an upcoming show. Of course, this isn’t the first time they’ve had a politician on the show - Hillary Clinton was on just a few weeks ago. These appearances can be fun, even though they are usually awkward and even though everyone knows it’s just the politician trying to look human by displaying a sense of humour. But most importantly, politicians’ cameos are always short, allowing the show to go back to what it should be doing: making fun of things, often including those politicians.

I realize political satire has never been the focus of the show, but it’s always been a component. And we rely on political humour to puncture the egos and highlight the flaws of our leaders and candidates, rather than assist them. Having a politician host the show means softening the satire, and that’s really unfortunate in this case. Trump is the biggest story in politics at the moment, and someone who is pushing politics in troubling directions. He should be a target, rather than a performer.

But it’s not hard to understand why the show is doing this: As the focus of so much attention right now, Trump drags viewers wherever he goes. Whether it’s his supporters, or people who just can’t look away from a trainwreck, Trump’s SNL episode is sure to be a ratings winner. And that’s another difference from other political appearances on the show: instead of SNL assisting a politician in forming their image, here the politician is helping the show, which just emphasizes what a clear example of selling-out this is.

Historically, the Saturday Night Live bandwagon has had a widely-varying number of passengers. Many people may be jumping on for the Trump episode, but I’ll be leaving it.